Marshall E. Hanley papers

Marshall E. Hanley was a Muncie native, the son of Frank A. and Emily Shirk Hanley. He graduated from Burris High School in 1937, attended the University of Chicago in 1937 and 1939, and graduated from Indiana University in 1942. He attended Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs in the summer of 1941 and received a master’s degree from Ball State University. Hanley was also a graduate of Harvard Law School and after graduation served as a clerk to Judge Sherman W. Minton, a Hoosier who was a judge on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Chicago and later a Supreme Court Justice. A prominent Democrat throughout his adult life, Hanley was a leader in the Indiana State Democratic Party, serving as president of Young Democrats at local, regional and state levels.

During the Truman administration, Hanley was appointed assistant United States district attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, becoming district attorney in 1950. Hanley had practiced law with Allan G. Weir in the firm Hanley and Weir in the late 1940s, but upon returning to Muncie after his term as U.S. district attorney, joined the law firm of Bracken, Gray, DeFur, and Voran. He served as city attorney during the administration of J. Arthur Tuhey (1956-1963) and for several weeks as city controller following the death of Stanley Terhune in 1963. He also served as city attorney from 1948 to 1950 for Mayor Lester E. Holloway (1948- 1952). In 1957, Hanley ran an unsuccessful campaign for nomination to the U.S. Senate in 1957, defeated in the primary by Senator Vance Hartke of Evansville. Hanley was the Eastern Indiana campaign director for the nomination and election of John F. Kennedy and when Kennedy made a campaign appearance in Muncie, he stayed at the Hanley home in Westwood.

Hanley served on many local boards and committees, and held memberships in many civic organizations. He also served as director of both the Ball State University Foundation and the Muncie Rotary Club. He was appointed a trustee of the Fort Wayne State School Foundation by Governors Schricker and Welsh, and served as a deacon and elder of the First United Presbyterian Church. He also taught business law at Ball State until he was forced to step aside for health reasons in 1980.

Hanley was married to the former Elaine Bowers of Anderson, with whom he had three children: Carol Lee, Marshall Sherman and Mark Anthony. Marshall Hanley died May 23, 1981.